one way to keep health care cost down is to get big pharm. out of controlling drug testing

Earlier today I saw a video about a drug for cancer therapy on a thread this site, the thread was locked but it got me thinking on how much effect the big pharmaceutical companies have on our health care costs. Here is a link to the story about DCA drug http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=677_1354418535 the story was reported by CTV in Canada, with a little resource and help for other posters here I found more information about DCA in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/full/465267b.html and on Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/cancercure.asp it seem that DCA is a real drug used to help cure other illness than cancer, but getting tests on whether it helps in some cancers is proving to be quite difficult possibly do to the fact that no pharmaceutical company can profit from the drug.

It is not in Big Pharm. interest to develop affordable therapy for cancer and other illness and until we find a way to develop alternate therapies that do not cost so much we will be stuck with ever rising health care costs. While our government funds a lot of research in the health care it appears that large Companies are able to profit form the research funded by our taxes and exert control on what drugs are tested and can come to market.

2. See this: Meta-analysis of studies comparing antidepressants to placebo

Irving Kirsch1*, Brett J. Deacon2, Tania B. Huedo-Medina3, Alan Scoboria4, Thomas J. Moore5, Blair T. Johnson3
1 Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom, 2 University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, United States of America, 3 Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America, 4 Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, 5 Institute for Safe Medication Practices, Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Background
Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance. Yet, the efficacy of the antidepressants may also depend on the severity of initial depression scores. The purpose of this analysis is to establish the relation of baseline severity and antidepressant efficacy using a relevant dataset of published and unpublished clinical trials.

Methods and Findings
We obtained data on all clinical trials submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the licensing of the four new-generation antidepressants for which full datasets were available. We then used meta-analytic techniques to assess linear and quadratic effects of initial severity on improvement scores for drug and placebo groups and on drug–placebo difference scores. Drug–placebo differences increased as a function of initial severity, rising from virtually no difference at moderate levels of initial depression to a relatively small difference for patients with very severe depression, reaching conventional criteria for clinical significance only for patients at the upper end of the very severely depressed category. Meta-regression analyses indicated that the relation of baseline severity and improvement was curvilinear in drug groups and showed a strong, negative linear component in placebo groups.

Conclusions
Drug–placebo differences in antidepressant efficacy increase as a function of baseline severity, but are relatively small even for severely depressed patients. The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication.

3. Wow! I feel really stupid that this never occurred to me! It's so obvious!

Thanks for posting.

Right away, I'm thinking this, though: how does it work? Government financing of trials? Who does the research? How do we get the scientific elite to go into the jobs if they become, essentially, civil service?

I am not seeing the path, but it seems clear that taking it out of pharma's hands is the answer.

4. Dept. of Defense funds research for my genetic disorder. n/t

5. Fight big pharma. Stop eating meat.

One of the best ways, in my opinion, to keep health care costs down is healthy diet. Everyone has their own opinion on what constitutes a 'healthy diet,' for sure.

For years I have been eating what I have felt to be a pretty healthy diet.. sort of the South Beach Diet, which is basically some meat, very little red meat, a little dairy and lots more veggies and fruit. I started that type of diet to lose weight and then just felt so much better I just kept eating that way.

I am 69 and in June I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. I had part of a tumor removed from my spine and then went through 3+ months of chemo, lumbar punctures, bone marrow aspirations, the whole 9 yards.

My sister came in early July to give some support. She has 'turned vegan."
She gets 'into things', and can become pretty attached to them and a little pushy about her opinions (Sounds like me, actually.) She once went on the Atkins Diet. God, probably the worst diet ever devised.
So when she started talking about being at least a vegetarian, I was a little suspicious. She suggested I read THE CHINA STUDY, which claims to show a definite connection between eating meat and cancer, amongst other diseases.

Now, I am not easily impressed by diet fads, healthy eating suggestions, etc. But, this book really did just that.

So, while she was here, about a month, I ate her way- no meat or dairy AT ALL.
I haven't had any meat or dairy since and have never felt better. My arthritis is better, cholesterol is way down (even in in just 5-6 months), I have more energy than before. I still work out a moderate amount so that hasn't changed.

I am in remission. and have another CT/ Pet Scan in a couple weeks. I know it is only 6 months, but I feel confident. Medicare has paid over $45,000 ! What a waste that could be. I am not saying that if I had not been eating meat most of my life that I would not have gotten lymphoma, and I am not saying that by not eating meat in the future the cancer will not return. but...

Now, the really interesting part of all this is...
I told each of my doctors, and PA's about The China Study.- PCP, Neurosurgeon, principal oncologist and his assistant, radiologist (a somewhat famous guy, actually), his resident, the bone marrow doctor, lumbar puncturist (if that is a word), the head of oncology at the cancer center, the nurses in the infusion center. The ONLY one who even heard what I said was my neurosurgeon. And he is Chinese! The rest had no interest whatsoever. Go figure.

And what was in the snack bar just outside the cancer center?-- pizza slices, donuts, bagels, sconces, ice cream, jelly-filled pastries, ham and cheese sandwiches on 'wonder bread', soda.. :&gt

Well, I didn't expect to spend so much time writing this, but I did...